Bannon expresses regret after slamming Trump family in new book

Steve Bannon expressed regret Sunday after he created a furor with comments critical of President Donald Trump's family in a new book, dragging the controversy into its fifth day as the White House kept up its attacks on both the former chief strategist and “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff.

"Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around," Bannon said in a statement. "I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency."

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Wolff quoted Bannon in "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" as saying that the decision by several members of the president's family and campaign staff to attend a meeting with a Russian lawyer who had offered to provide dirt on Hillary Clinton was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic."

Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and onetime campaign chief Paul Manafort attended the June 2016 gathering. Bannon was also quoted as saying special counsel Robert Mueller would "crack Don Jr. like an egg on national TV."

In his statement Sunday, first obtained by Axios, Bannon said the comments about the Trump Tower meeting were actually meant to criticize Manafort, not Trump Jr.

"My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.," he said.

The on-the-record comments from Bannon sparked intense backlash from the White House, which has characterized Bannon's cooperation with Wolff as a "betrayal." The book has also distracted Republicans and forced them to answer questions about the president's temperament and mental stability, even as congressional and Cabinet leaders gathered at Camp David over the weekend to chart their 2018 agenda.

Trump still seemed fixated on the situation Sunday, calling "Fire and Fury" a "Fake Book" on Twitter days after the first excerpts appeared online Wednesday. White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, in what turned into a hostile back-and-forth with host Jake Tapper, said on CNN that it was a "garbage book" containing nothing more than "poorly written fiction." He also called Bannon's comments "grotesque" and said the White House was "deeply disappointed."

A day earlier, in a break from the Camp David meeting, Trump complained about U.S. libel laws.

"Libel laws are very weak in this country,” he said. “If they were stronger, hopefully, you would not have something like that happen."

Wolff said on Sunday that the president himself, not merely Bannon, welcomed him into the White House.

"And I said, 'But, you know, is it, is it OK?' 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,'" Wolff said was the president's response. "So then I went around, and so it was basically me saying, 'The president says this is, this is — he likes this idea.'"

The Trump Tower meeting about which Bannon spoke to Wolff has become one of the focal points of the investigation into alleged collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government.

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The president lit into Bannon after the publication of excerpts from the book, telling the world that when his former chief strategist was fired he "not only lost his job, he lost his mind." The Mercer family, wealthy backers who had previously supported Bannon, issued a rare statement distancing themselves from him.

Bannon insisted in his statement Sunday that he never meant to imply the campaign colluded with Russia. "There was no collusion and the investigation is a witch hunt," he said.

Perhaps seeking to return to the president's good graces, Bannon's statement heaped praise on Trump, calling him "the only candidate that could have taken on and defeated the Clinton apparatus."

"My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama," Bannon added.

Bannon had managed to stay in Trump's orbit before earning his ire. Although he was fired in August, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters recently that Trump and Bannon spoke in December.